The Dish Cleaning Hack You Didn't Know You Needed

Dish washing can be an extremely monotonous task—rinse, soap, scrub, rinse, dry, repeat—and it often leaves your hands dried-out and irritated. The culprit in this equation is the dish soap, which can often be way too harsh to be using on our hands nonstop. So what can make this arduous task (slightly) more enjoyable, beyond hiring a housecleaner?

A sustainable living Instagram account Simply Living Well, which boasts 177,000 followers, actually posted the answer to our pleas back in August, which Real Simple just brought to our attention. Her dish-washing hack? Use bar soap to wash your dishes—not the regular liquid dish soap we get from our local grocery stores.

The Simply Living Well account holder, Julia, says that her bar of dish-washing soap lasted an entire month. "I don't care if I never use dish soap again," Julia posted to her Instagram. "It’s sudsy, nontoxic, easy to use, gentle on the skin, and comes plastic-package free. I just rub my hand brush on it and go to town on my dishes."

One account even commented, "To me, there’s something so lovely about the simplicity of using ONE product for everything— dishes, bath, shampoo, house cleaning, washing the dog, etc. I just love that."

A post shared by Julia (@simply.living.well) on Aug 13, 2018 at 5:56am PDT

Recommended by the sustainability-focused Insta account, Bring Your Own Long Beach sells $10 bars of soaps that are perfect for washing your dishes. They're safe to use on your skin—including your face—and are nonirritating, hypoallergenic, and even recommended by dermatologists in cases of eczema, psoriasis, and dry skin.

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